Pirates & Hackers: 3 Tales

from the high seas of the netwars

As large corporations hold the copyright of most of the music and films that have been created over the last century, conflict against these cultural monoliths makes piracy enevitable, even natural, normal and simple. It's worth taking the temperature of the digital freedom waters in diferent countries.

Sweden: ThePirateBay.org Raided 'Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing whether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal.'

Note\; Sweden now has a piracy party who will be contesting the next election. Slashdot and The Register cover

UK/USA: Gary Mc Kinnon be extradited to face US charges of entering without password in their most secure databases to look for UFO files. The UK are trying to ensure he'll get a proper trial and won't end up in Guantanamo, but seem happy to extradite, and are amending their legislation as per US instruction.

Brazil: The Brazilian minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, has defended his state's internet law (which is the most tolerant in the world), and hailed hackers and creative users of the new technology, at a world Internet conference which opened yesterday in Europe. This meanst Brazil is still the hackers' best pal Read More

In Ireland - we have the noise Hacker, ensuring info is still free. Click here for the latest.

For an overview/audio of global trends: Kenbrew McLoed spoke in Dublin earlier this year, on the shrinkage of the public domain and the privatisation of everything under the sun.

editors! please allow for full posting of the following text due to the fact that the swedish authorities may take it down at a later date.
thank you

-erqwnqr

SITE DOWN

In the morning of 2006-05-31 the Swedish National Criminal Police showed a search warrant to Rix|Port80 personnell. The warrant was valid for all datacentres of Rix|Port80 and was directed at The Pirate Bay. The allegation was breach of copy-right law, alternatively assisting breach of copy-right law.

The police officers were allowed access to the racks where the TPB servers and other servers are hosted. All servers in the racks were clearly marked as to which sites run on each. The police took down all servers in the racks, including the non-commercial site Piratbyr?n, the mission of which is to defend the rights of TPB via public debate.

According to police officers simultaneously questioning the president of Rix|Port80, the purpose of the search warrant is to take down TPB in order to secure evidence of the allegations mentioned above.

The necessity for securing technical evidence for the existance of a web-service which is fully official, the legality of which has been under public debate for years and whose principals are public persons giving regular press interviews, could not be explained. Asked for other reasoning behind the choice to take down a site, without knowing wether it is illegal or not, the officers explained that this is normal.

The TPB can receive compensation from the Swedish state in case that the upcoming legal processes show that TPB is indeed legal.